When receiving search queries at a search engine, accurate classification results in improved determination of the user intent behind the search query, and more relevant search engine results returned to the senders of the search queries. Classification can be a difficult task, because some search queries may be short, and contain ambiguous terms. Further, a particular classification for a given search query may change over time.
Search query classification can be performed by using historical query logs.
Building such query logs may take a long time, and curating the query logs may have an associated high cost. Finally, adding entirely new classifications and adding a new classification for old query terms may also present difficulties.